With the start of advent, the church entered a new church year. As the rest of the world catches up it is clear that 2020 is going to be a year with a lot of opportunities and threats. There will be many opportunities, but we must be able to seize those opportunities.
Just to go through some of the ‘highlights’ for 2020:

The Franklin Graham tour starts at the end of May. Tour dates and venues can be accessed here. Sheffield has already been protesting about the planned event in their city. You can read more about this here.

Franklin Graham’s tour is being billed as bringing hope, but he is bringing a very particular brand of Christianity that is not affirming to those of us who are LGBTQ.

In my much younger days I went to see his father Billy Graham on his tours of the UK. I found Billy Graham very impressive in his preaching. He preached a message for everyone, focused on the cross and the Bible and a message that was traditional but not as conservative as I expect the 2020 tour will be.

The Gafcon conference takes place in Kitali Rwanda in early June. More information about this can be found here.

This may not be happening in the UK, but the impact of the conference will be felt here. The organisers of this conference are encouraging bishops worldwide to boycott the Lambeth conference and to attend GAFCON. Those attending the conference have to agree to the Jerusalem Declaration, which can be found here and check out point 8. A key tenet of GAFCON is Lambeth resolution 1.10, which is the only Lambeth resolution given a place on the GAFCON website, where it has a whole page to itself. That page can be accessed here.

Archbishop Justin wants the Lambeth Conference to be a success and early indications are that ‘being a success’ means that a lot of people attend it. Putting bishops in a position where they are encouraged to attend GAFCON and boycott Lambeth is a growing threat to the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury. As GAFCON grows, the possibility of a split in the Anglican communion grows.

The Methodist Conference, where they will be debating (and likely to pass) the resolution to allow Methodist churches to register for same-sex marriages. This takes place at the end of June. The report they are debating can be found here.

There are a number of ancillary documents supporting the report, these can be accessed here. There is a frequently asked questions section that can be accessed here. Other relevant Methodist resources can be accessed from the Marriage and Relationships 2019 page here.

The Methodist work is really impressive and I would encourage everyone to visit their pages and to use the resources there. Not only is their theological approach something that other denominations could benefit from following, but the way that they have thought through how to resource the debate shows a clarity of planning that is often lacking in other church groups.

The Methodists have not started with ‘what does the Bible say about homosexuality?’, but have started with the question of ‘what do good relationships look like?’ As they explore that idea, it leads to a broader view of relationships, families, love, intimacy etc and then they explore what the Bibles says about these broader areas. This gives a quite different emphasis to the Biblical material.

There is also the expectation that Methodists will discuss this locally at all levels before the conference in June. This will not be easy and the Church of England would learn a lot from the Methodists in how to conduct these broad conversations.

I know some local Methodist churches that have already had the discussions and had the votes in their church leadership and if the vote goes through, they are ready and keen to sign up to conduct same-sex marriages as soon as it is available to them.

The Church of England’s Living in Love and Faith project will produce its materials this year. Information about LLF can be found here.

This is the wildcard of 2020. Word on the street is that LLF will produce resources but not make recommendations. That may well annoy both sides and it may well get a negative reception. That will be unfortunate, there is likely to be some progress one way or another. It is likely to give us some of what we want, but it won’t give us everything.

The biggest question will be what happens with those resources? It has been a strategic error on the part of the Church of England hierarchy that they have used the LLF process to shut down any debate on almost anything to do with gender and sexuality. That has led to a lot of frustration and that frustration could come out in a way that the leadership will not like.

The resources are due to be discussed at the General Synod in York on July 10th to 14th (a week after the Methodist conference). I was at the 2017 ‘not taking note’ protest outside Church House at the February 2017 General Synod – will I need to be planning a protest trip to York this summer too?

The 2020 Lambeth Conference takes place in the second half of July. Information about the conference can be found here.

It starts on July 22nd and continues until early August. Many bishops and their spouses will be arriving earlier and be spending time in one or other of the dioceses. There may be an opportunity to meet and engage with the bishops while they are in the dioceses. These bishops are likely to be allies or at least open minded, those who are taking the GAFCON viewpoint will be staying away. The Big Hello is the programme to welcome visiting bishops – accessible here.

At the top of my wish list for Lambeth would be to repeal the 1998 resolution 1.10, but I think there is no chance of that happening. If they did that it would be a signal to GAFCON that a schism is inevitable. It should happen, but it won’t. Whatever happens, it will be a carefully stage-managed affair that will have a slick publicity and comms team giving spin to everything that happens. This is the point where actions will speak louder than words. We have heard all the empty promises and wishes, but it is time to accept our LGBTQ brothers and sisters in Christ as full and equal members of the worldwide church.

Let us see what 2020 brings, but change is coming, just how much and how fast.

I have been reading Charles Foster’s blog Smyth, Fletcher, Iwerne, and the theology of the divided self from Surviving Church.org. The article is available here.

It has set me thinking about the way people can be faithful to wrong theology and how this can be a source of evil in the church. Foster tells of his experiences and indoctrination into a particular theology for young men from elite backgrounds and how this was warped into abuse.

It reminded me of the Biblical story of Jephthah, told in Judges chapter 11. The way this is usually preached is that Jephthah was a great and faithful man of God. He made a promise to God that if God gave him victory in battle then Jephthah would sacrifice ‘whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.’ NIV translation. When he returned the first person to greet him was his only child, his daughter. Jephthah was faithful to his promise to the Lord and he eventually sacrificed his daughter to the Lord. Therefore, we are told, we should be faithful, no matter how high the cost, just like Jephthah.

Very rarely have I heard that story preached for what it actually was – the cold-blooded murder of a child. Even though there are clear prohibitions against child sacrifice, for example in Deuteronomy chapter 12 or Leviticus 18.

God did not tell Jephthah to sacrifice his daughter, God did not ask him for any promise in return for victory against the Ammonites. God freely gave victory to his people. Jephthah may have sincerely believed that he was being faithful to God in sacrificing his daughter, but he was doing something that had no mandate from God. This was something that was forbidden in the ten commandments, given in Exodus 20.13.

Yet nobody in his society tried to stop him. Why? Was it because he was a powerful leader and was beyond challenge? Was it because she was a daughter, and after all women were the property of their father until they became the property of their husband?

Many times I have heard this story linked with the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, as told in Genesis chapter 22. Jephthah, like Abraham, is portrayed as a man of great faith, willing to sacrifice his only child for the Lord. But there are two very big differences in their stories. First, God told Abraham to do this, so he was being obedient to what God actually said, it was not a promise he had simply made himself. Secondly, the child did not die, God provided a ram to be the sacrifice instead. No child murder here, just faithful obedience and a willingness to give everything for God.

Evil can flourish where it is not challenged. How many powerful people of God are following their own agendas, believing themselves to be faithful? How can the people of God hold up a mirror to their activities and say ‘no, this is not being faithful to God, it is child murder’? Where there is power, there will be abuses of power, even if those are seen to be having a good reason.

This is the heart of the problem, where faithful Christians are trusting their leaders to do what is right but judge the intentions and reasons or even the faithful integrity of the person rather than holding those leaders to account for what they are actually doing.

The Church for Everyone conference took place at St James and Emmanuel Church in Didsbury Manchester, hosted by their vicar Rev Nick Bundock. As part of the day Jayne Ozanne ran a workshop entitled ‘How to recognise and safeguard against spiritual abuse’.

She started with an overview of Church of England policy documents, starting with the 2006 report ‘Promoting a Safe Church’, which was the first official mention of spiritual abuse (on page 39 in appendix 2). In the 2011 ‘Responding well to those who have been sexually abused’, the Church of England used the government’s list of 4 types of abuse – physical, sexual, emotional and neglect.

In 2017, the ‘Responding well to Domestic Abuse’ report recognised additional categories including spiritual abuse. This report was about domestic violence, but appendix 3 was about theology and showed how theology could be misused to cause harm. This appendix is well worth reading and the report can be downloaded from here.

In 2018 there was the first case of a CDM (clergy discipline measure) for spiritual abuse.

The Methodists issued reports in 2010 and 2015 ‘Safeguarding adults’. The Roman Catholics do not appear to have official policies on spiritual abuse. Spiritual abuse is mentioned on the Baptists’ website, but it is not defined.

The ground-breaking academic textbook on the subject is Breaking the Silence of Spiritual Abuse by Lisa Oakley and Kathryn Kinmond
Available to buy here.

The latest book by Lisa Oakley and Justin Humphreys is Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse: Creating Healthy Christian Cultures.

Recently the organisation thirtyone:eight (formerly CCPAS) published their research paper entitled ‘Spiritual Abuse’, which can be downloaded here.
It defined spiritual abuse as:

‘Spiritual abuse is a form of emotional and psychological abuse. It is characterised by a systematic pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour in a religious context. Spiritual abuse can have a deeply damaging impact on those who experience it. However, holding a theological position is not in itself inherently spiritually abusive, but misuse of scripture, applied theology and doctrine is often a component of spiritually abusive behaviour.’

The presenting factors in spiritual abuse are fear (of not being good enough, being wrong, being excluded, afraid to speak out) and shame (who you are, what you have done). This can lead to self hate and for some to internalised homophobia.

There needs to be greater accountability in the church to whistle blow and to report abuse. There also needs to be greater training on how to respond to reports of abuse, For example, it is not a good idea to just go to the parent / church or have a chat over a cup of tea with someone accused of abuse, it must be reported to the safeguarding officer.
Effective safeguarding needs:
• Empowerment
• Supervision
• Support
• Training
• Awareness.
We also have to be aware of the current culture about a ‘clash of rights’, if we are to reduce and eliminate abuse. God’s love is not harmful.

The next speaker was the National co-ordinator of Inclusive Church, Ruth Wilde. The inclusive Church website can be accessed here.

Inclusive Church, as an organisation, started with a letter of protest. It was a letter of protest about the Jeffrey John affair, when the then Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams asked him not to accept the position of bishop of Reading, because of its effect on the wider church. A short summary of this can be found here. The letter was signed by thousands of people. This led to a meeting held in a church in London. From this Inclusive Church was born.

Inclusive Church is a network of churches, groups and individuals uniting together around a shared vision:“We believe in inclusive Church – a church which celebrates and affirms every person and does not discriminate. We will continue to challenge the church where it continues to discriminate against people on grounds of disability, economic power, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, learning disability, mental health, neurodiversity, or sexuality. We believe in a Church which welcomes and serves all people in the name of Jesus Christ; which is scripturally faithful; which seeks to proclaim the Gospel afresh for each generation; and which, in the power of the Holy Spirit, allows all people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Jesus Christ.”

Inclusive Church may have been born out of LGBT exclusion, but rapidly grew to explicitly include working in other areas of exclusion. All exclusion comes from a similar sense of entitlement and power, so working for inclusion of anyone is working for the inclusion of others too.

Inclusive Church’s flagship event every year is the disability conference, held at St Martin in the Fields church in London. Information about the 2019 conference is here.

She then shared a reading from John Chapter 4, telling the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. This was a scripture that was very important for her and her work. Jesus had challenged the privileged and put the experience of the marginalised in the centre. The Samaritan woman who had been excluded from her society was saved by Jesus and then she was able to save and redeem the same people who had shunned and rejected her.

Andrea King from Affirming Baptists spoke next.

The foundational scripture she shared with us was 1 Corinthians 12 about all the different members of the body of Christ being equally important. That spoke directly to inclusion. All members of the body of Christ are equally important.

There are too many suicides happening. Mistreatment from faith communities can sink deeply into people and it is not eh sort of thig that you can just wash off. The pain that is caused can be very deep. It can be presented as ‘spiritual correction’ or ‘discipline’. Why should we have to carry that? This experience of faith communities can be harmful to Rainbow people.

Some experience shame when they see that sort of treatment of members of the Rainbow community. This is not what God commands us to do. In John 13 we are commanded to love one another. But we cannot reconcile that command with the mistreatment or exclusion of anyone.

Andrea launching a new resource at the conference. This was a resource aimed at developing reconciliation in faith groups.

The Church for Everyone conference took place at St James and Emmanuel Church in Didsbury Manchester, hosted by their vicar Rev Nick Bundock. St James and Emmanuel is part of the Withington deanery of Manchester and last year became the first inclusive deanery, with all the churches registering with Inclusive Church. It is also the church that Lizzie Lowe attended before her death in 2014. Her death has left a huge legacy for the church, both locally and nationally. More of this later.

Nick introduced the day, with a powerful message about inclusion and the church. He spoke of the criticism and opposition that they have faced for their inclusive stand, but was of the opinion that ‘nobody will get chucked out of heaven for bringing more people in.’ This focus on God and the kingdom was a big vision that took us away from church politics and brought it all back to what church is really for.

He spoke of the joy of the journey into inclusion, a joy not often found in Church of England churches! For example, telling the story of someone in their congregation with learning difficulties who wrote a prayer and came to the front in a service to read out their prayer.

For him the journey was like the Biblical story of the people of God returning from exile in Babylon. The event that started that journey was Lizzie’s death.

(Photo from @JayneOzanne)

He used an analogy of the state of the church at the moment, by comparing it to trees. The trees he referred to had branches and leaves and lots of healthy growth, but their branches were pointing in opposite directions. One may be growing towards inclusion and the other away from it. It was important to know where a church stood on issues before trying to engage with it because trying to force a church to move in a particular direction when it was not ready just leads to argument, violence or destruction because there is no clear vision to unite people to move in that direction.

He stresses how important clarity is and recommended the group https://www.churchclarity.org/ which can help to identify how clear a particular church is in its policies towards women or LGBT. He was worried about churches that put out the welcome mat and draw in the young and others, but where there is silence on where that church stands on the important issues.

Then he introduced Lizzie’s parents Kevin and Hilary Lowe.

They have set up a charity in Lizzie’s memory, called Lizzie’s Legacy. http://lizzielowe.org
For anyone who does not know the story of Lizzie’s tragic suicide, more information can be found at https://lizzielowe.org/about-lizzies-legacy/ There is also a video about Lizzie’s life on the charity’s homepage. If you do not know the story, stop and go there now.

The charity aims to create a safe place for young people where they can get support. They are funding a youth leader and a youth choir, formed after a spate of suicides among the young. They are offering mental health support and help to churches who want to be more visibly inclusive.

I have been to a lot of conferences, but this is the first time I have ever known a talk get a standing ovation. They are turning their grief into a powerful force to help other people. Their work and the lives they will save will be a remarkable legacy for their daughter.